


Friends We've Known

by anneapocalypse



Series: Flaws [1]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Memories, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-03
Updated: 2013-10-03
Packaged: 2017-12-28 08:30:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/989909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anneapocalypse/pseuds/anneapocalypse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wash knows more about Carolina than he has any right to, but he can't help that. When he accidentally overhears her listening to York's logs, it brings back things neither of them have been able to talk about. Set mid-Season 10, during the present-day storyline.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friends We've Known

The base is silent. Wash can't sleep for shit. Couldn't anyway, he hasn’t slept well in years, but the quiet only makes it worse. Used to the low rumble of a ship, or at the very least, the hum of a working power supply. The base they're camping in overnight is abandoned, one of the lost remnants of Project Freelancer, once a practice base occupied by sim troops wearing their binary colors and taking themselves and their "mission" oh so seriously. Now a concrete shell. No troops, no power, no supplies. No nothing. Just a shelter. But that's all they need tonight.

No way Carolina's going to let them stay another night, though Wash can tell the guys could all use it. Tucker especially. The Reds, oddly enough, are by far more pliable; you just have to make sure Sarge thinks whatever he's doing is _his_ idea, and he'll go gung-ho guns blazing, and the others will come along. Simmons ass-kissing the whole time, Grif whining, but they'll get the job done. You just have to let them do it their way. Wash might feel the slightest bit guilty about offering Carolina that piece of advice in his damnable desire to be _helpful_ , except he’s pretty sure she didn’t take it anyway. She hasn’t exactly been what you’d call subtle. Doesn’t quite seem like her, but it’s been a long time and Wash doesn’t always trust his memory, so it’s hard to say.

Caboose, well, Caboose'll follow along with whatever Church wants. "Church." Wash can't help bristling a little at calling Epsilon that, but it's because he's "Church" that the group accepts him in the first place and arguing with that is only going to cause trouble. Maybe it should be easier than saying “Epsilon.” Fuck if Wash knows. He’d be happy never seeing him again, that’s all he knows, “Church” or not.

Tucker, though… he’s different. He's been outside the Red Team-Blue Team paradigm. The dig, working with the Sangheili (well, more than working if Wash believes the stories), he’s had experiences the others haven’t. And it has to be harder for him, coming back into this, even if he doesn’t say so in so many words. Wash can’t help wondering if he’d even stay, if it weren't for Epsilon. Church. Tucker's always going on about how much he hates Church but he sure does seem to stick close to him.

Then again they all stick closer these days, united by, if nothing else, a mutual distrust of Carolina. Wash wishes he could convince them they’re wrong about her. Problem is, he’s not sure they are.

He's... happy to see her alive, if "happy" is a word he can use. They were friends, back then. He thinks. Still hard to sort out which memories are real, sometimes. Wash knows he had friends in Freelancers, good ones, but there are still days he doubts those memories. Wonders if they were all really as close as he remembers, or if he just... wanted it that way. Wanted to think there was a time people cared about him. Wanted to remember there were people he would've died for. Only he wasn't the one who died.

He shouldn't be alive.

Wash exhales, rolls out of his bunk and paces from one side of the room to the other.

He doesn’t do well with silence.

Actually he's surprised how much being around other people helps. Wash doesn't think of himself as particularly liking people, but having other voices around, real ones, keeps him grounded. They know exactly who he is: he's Washington, one of the "Freelancers" which to them is just some shadowy group of mean mercs that only show up to cause trouble. Can't say as they're wrong. That's another thing about the Reds and Blues. Things are simpler with them. Everyone has a name, a place. He is Washington, but his armor is blue, and so he's a Blue. He outranks Tucker, at least that's how they see it; Freelancer didn't have ranks in the same way, Wash isn't a sergeant or a captain or any of those clear-cut titles, but as far as they're concerned he's the ranking member of Blue Team and thus, the Team Leader. Simple.

At least, it was simple until Carolina showed up, and they pulled Epsilon out of that memory unit.

Carolina is the wild card. Not Red or Blue (despite the color of her armor), a Freelancer, a dead woman walking, an unknown quantity. Even to Wash.

Wash pauses at the doorframe, listening intently. Finds himself doing that a lot when it’s too quiet, trying to pull _something_ out of the silence, but this time he’s pretty sure he actually hears something. Can't imagine what. The base is so quiet. Not even crickets outside. Whole planet's near-uninhabited, just a little flyover world Freelancer used precisely because no one wanted it for anything else.

There it is. A murmur from down the hall. Someone talking. Too faint to make out the words but definitely someone talking. Wash has his rifle in hand before he even thinks, which is stupid—if someone followed them into the base, someone who'd actually be a threat, they wouldn't be fucking talking—but it’s instinct.

Wash keeps the rifle lowered as he steps out into the dim corridor, but he's alert, eyes scanning the almost total dark, barely illuminated through the open doorway by the slivers of the planet's two moons. They didn’t even bother putting doors on these sim bases. Unnecessary expense.

He moves slowly, tautly. The voice is getting more distinct as he follows the circular corridor that rings the outer part of the base, opening into the interior rooms. Faintly from back the other way, past his own room, he can hear the twin snores of Tucker and Caboose, sharing a room because Caboose doesn't like sleeping alone in strange places.

The snores are familiar. That's not what's bothering him. What's wrong is that the other voice is familiar too, and he's not sure how yet. Some part of his mind is pushing back hard right now, _no no no turn around go back don't listen don't let it in don't_. Can't tell why. Can't tell if it's because the familiarity doesn’t belong to him—or because it does. There's just a powerful sense of _no not right_ creeping down his spine, out his limbs and into his fingertips gripping the rifle. The rifle isn't going to help. Whatever it is that's dogging him deep down, it isn't something he can shoot. The worst kind of thing.

It's coming from Carolina's room. Farthest from the team. How they wanted it, naturally, since they all seem to think she's liable to slit their throats in their sleep.

Recognition hits him just a second before the words become distinct.

"-rricane Delta continues to rain on my parade. So when I finally see her again, I think I've narrowed down my line to like two options, okay? Here, here they are. One..."

He’s surprised how much it hurts. Nothing should hurt like that anymore, like a Mantis just stepped on his chest and caved his armor right in. Not after Recovery, not after finding their bodies, not after what he had to do.

But it’s York’s _voice_. His voice and his stupid pickup lines and… where did Carolina even _get_ this?

The playback is interrupted by an irritated sigh.

She’s been different ever since she and Epsilon got back from… there. Part of Wash wishes he’d gone, even though he said his good-byes a long time ago. Still, she didn’t even ask. York was one of his best friends, at least he thinks—hell, Wash spent a lot more time with him during Freelancer than she did. And she didn’t ask him to go. He could’ve said something, but what would be the point. She does what she wants. And apparently she didn’t want to tell him about this.

After everything they’ve both been through, you’d think it would be easier for them to talk. Even Wash is surprised that it’s not, and well, he doesn’t really talk to anybody these days. Just easier to keep those things close.

Still, there’s so much he wishes he could ask.

Most people never heard how bad York and Carolina used to fight, or Wash doesn’t think so. They’d bicker sometimes, sure—well, not so much bicker, York would joke and flirt in the middle of training and missions and damn near anything else and Carolina would shoot him a glare. Anything else happened, happened behind closed doors. Wash always got the feeling she didn’t like their relationship being public. Maybe it was different when they were alone, but he sort of doubts that from the way York would vent to him and North, _God, sometimes I just don’t_ get _her, all I wanna do is make her happy and she gets so_ mad _at me, I mean, I don’t mean it bad, I love 'er, I just don’t know what to_ do _, you know?_

Never was looking for advice, didn’t seem to hear it when North would say _Maybe give her some space,_ because he’d be right back at it the next day, tossing little bits of innuendo she never responded to except with one of those looks.

And now he’s gone, and so’s North, making Wash the only one who knows, besides her.

Wash flattens his back against the wall. His younger self might've had some misgivings about listening in on something this private. That's putting it too lightly. His younger self would've just plain walked away. Good thing he's not his younger self anymore, then. His younger self was terrible at recon. No wonder York and North always beat him in those training exercises.

“I would’ve told her… I understand why she did what she did. I just wish she hadn’t.”

The playback halts.

“You kill me.” Carolina’s voice cuts acerbically through the dark.

Wash freezes against the wall.

“Like hell you understand. You never did. Everything I wanted was just an... _obstacle_ to you. ”

She lets out a bitter laugh.

“Guess you finally found something more important than me. I wanted you to—you _needed_ that, I just...”

It’s not that her voice softens. If anything it’s rougher than ever. A kind of vulnerability Wash’s never heard from her, or probably anyone, a kind that’s not soft but harsh and raw as an open wound. Makes his skin crawl, he knows damn well he shouldn’t be here, but he doesn’t move.

“I just wish it hadn’t been _her_.”

The playback starts again.

Funny, most of what he knows about Carolina, she doesn't know he knows. Maybe that's why it's so easy to invade her privacy like this... For god's sake, he has memories of her birth. Of a little girl with thick dirty-blonde braids, it took him a while to make the connection—he never realized she wasn't a natural redhead, and though Tucker's made a few cracks about whether the carpet matches the drapes, York was never quite crass enough for that. It's the eyes that drove it home, improbably green and intense, even in childhood.

He remembers taking her to school, little hand in a big hand that isn't his, not a soldier's hand but a scientist's with long, restless fingers.

He remembers coming late to a gymnastics tournament, just in time to catch her mat routine, standing in the corner because there's no space left on the bleachers. Watching her in her aqua leotard, hair pulled off her face in a tight bun. Watching her execute a move, some kind of flip he doesn't know the name for, only knows she does it perfectly and when she lands, the smile that crosses her pre-teen face is a smile too bright for Carolina, too broad, too real. It can't be the same person but it is.

He already knows far more about her than he has any right to, but he can't help that. And now, when he has a choice, he can’t quite bring himself to walk away because this is real, both of them are real, even if York's voice is only a recording, even if he’ll never hear Carolina sound like this again.

The logs must’ve been in York’s helmet when he died. Wash never went through the data he recovered—no time, there was way too much of it, and he had South to contend with. Never knew York kept journals at all. He remembers the codename, though, Foxtrot-12. Not Freelancer. Most likely York joined up with some kind of merc group after he fled.

Never came back for Wash. No one did.

For a while he made excuses in his head for all of them, so many excuses. Been angry, hated them, missed them, romanticized those friendships and then wrote them off as figments of his imagination, people who never really cared about him anyway and he was just stupid and naive enough to believe they were more than teammates. God, for all he knows, they tried—he was locked up for months, probably behind every layer of security the Director could pile on. He’ll never know. He’s made peace with that. Doesn’t need this, doesn’t need to wonder if York ever mentioned _him_ in those journals. Maybe he did. Won’t make him any less dead.

No one went back for Carolina, either. He hasn't thought much about that part, but no one went back for her, as far as he knows. Not even the man he wasn't supposed to know was her father. Is her father.

He hasn't asked her how she made it. She hasn't asked him, either. Maybe, if they get through this—maybe one of these days they'll be able to. Maybe.


End file.
